


Accept It

by nagi_schwarz



Series: Comment Fic 2016 [17]
Category: Harry Potter - Fandom
Genre: AU, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-01
Updated: 2016-06-01
Packaged: 2018-07-11 15:36:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7058566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nagi_schwarz/pseuds/nagi_schwarz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the comment_fic prompt: "Harry Potter, Harry Potter+/Draco Malfoy, he never made it to Hogwarts."</p><p>Harry never made it to Hogwarts. His life is weird. He accepts it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Accept It

Harry's life is weird. He accepts it. Mum has a love-hate relationship with Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon, mostly hate, but love enough that Harry and Mum have somewhere to go for Easter and Christmas dinner twice a year. Mum never talks about Dad, how he died or why Harry's never met any of his family, and she never lets Harry meet her boyfriend. He's seen the bloke once or twice, tall, dark-haired, hook-nosed, looks pretty rough, always glares at Harry, but they never speak to each other, and Harry knows when Sev comes around, he needs to get out of the way. Harry has broken telekinesis, uses it accidentally when he's upset or tired. Mum's telekinesis is much better, but she never does anything fun with it, only uses it to fix what Harry's accident-ed all over.

Harry tries to make his life as normal as possible. Plays footie with the other lads after school. Buys a guitar from a pawn shop with the money he earns from delivering newspapers early in the morning. He learns to play old songs from The Clash and The Who, the Birds and The Beatles. Mum has a pretty epic collection of old records lying around. The first time he gets into them she goes utterly pear-shaped, but then she gets this look in her eyes, all sad, like she's thinking of Dad, and lets him have them.

There are really only two rules in his life: tell everyone his name's Harry Evans (not that hard, she signed him up for school that way) and never show anyone his scar. His teachers despair over the messiness of his hair, but after the headmaster corralled Harry into his office and attacked his hair with a comb ineffectually for half an hour, the man admitted defeat and unfortunate genetics and let Harry and his hair go.

So when Harry's on his way to the park one night, skirting past Skinner's End where cranky Aunt Eileen used to live before she died, he's only vaguely surprised when the door flies open and this skinny kid with white-blond hair comes tearing down the steps. He's crying like a girl and is wearing a funny black dress.

Harry tries to step out of his way. Magically, the kid doesn't trip on his dress. Instead he trips over his own feet because he's crying so hard and can't see that the pavement is so cracked it's a broken ankle waiting to happen. The kid sprawls in the dirt and continues to sob.

Harry mostly keeps to himself, but Mum always told him to be nice. He ambles over cautiously, ready to run or take a swing at the kid if the kid proves unfriendly or dangerous. "Hey, kid, you all right?"

The kid heaves himself up onto his knees and glares imperiously, which is impressive, given how his face is streaked with dirt and tears. He's about Harry's age. Sixteen. "I am not a baby goat," he snaps, and he's got an accent. Bloody toff, he is. He looks Harry up and down with disdain. "And you're barely older than me."

Harry raises one hand in a gesture of surrender. "No offense meant. Just...you look like you're in a bad way."

The kid pushes himself to his feet, dusts himself off. Then he looks Harry up and down in a different way, like Harry's fascinating. Maybe he's one of those home-school kids whose parents think they're still in the dark ages. Funny dress-robes would make sense that way.

"I am fine," he says, which is a lie and they both know it, but Harry won't deny the kid the chance to reclaim his dignity. "A Malfoy is composed and dignified at all times."

Harry barely manages not to snort derisively. "Malfoy, eh? That your name?" He offers a hand. "Evans. Harry Evans."

"Draco Malfoy." He takes Harry's hand and, instead of shaking it, actually bows over it.

"Nice to meet you," Harry says blankly, because Mum raised him with manners, but this is downright bizarre. "Look, word of advice, if you don't want to end up with a black eye by the end of your first day here, you might want to see about getting some different clothes. I'm easy-going, but some of the other lads around here don't take too well when someone's...different." He'd tried, once, to tell Kevin Conroy about his telekinesis, back in year two, and it hadn't gone well, so he'd never mentioned it again, and everyone pretended it hadn't happened (least of all Kevin Conroy, because Harry had blackened his eye pretty thoroughly).

Draco looks down at himself, and his lip curls into a sneer, but then he darts a look over his shoulder at the house he just came from, and he says, "Perhaps you're right. I am not...in the best of circumstances at the moment."

"Listen, I was about to go hang out in the park, practice my guitar, but if you like, I could show you round the charity shops. I can look for new records while you buy some new clothes."

Draco starts to nod, then ducks his chin and blushes. He's so pale that he goes from white to pink in an instant. It's a bit fetching on him. He has fine, delicate features, like a girl. Harry would never actually say that to him, though.

"I don't have any mug – er, any money."

Harry glances at Spinner's End, where he's been forbidden from going since he turned eleven, since Aunt Eileen died. "You know Aunt Eileen?" He doesn't ask about her son, who is maybe sort of dating his mum, because it makes him uncomfortable to think of Mum snogging greasy old Sev the way Harry sometimes likes to snog Lakshmi Parwal behind the bike shed at school.

Draco narrows his eyes. "Eileen who?"

"Eileen Prince. Used to live in Spinner's End. Died when I was in primary school," Harry said. "Bit of a scary old woman, but nice to my mum an' me in the end."

"I never had the pleasure of meeting Madam Prince, but her family is well-known and well-respected in...certain circles," Draco says.

Certain circles where old ladies swear like sailors. Certain circles Harry's sure Draco's never even heard of. "Right. Well, she used to keep this old tin of money –" Harry darts a glance over his shoulder, none of Mum's gossip gaggle of neighborhood mums in sight, and reaches out, nudges aside a loose brick on the doorstep. Beneath the brick is a tin containing money from Harry's emergency stash (originally Aunt Eileen's but spent down and replenished by Harry) and a spare key to the house.

"How do you know that?" Draco asked.

"Like I said. She was nice to me and Mum before she died." Harry replaces the tin and the brick and straightens up, hefts his guitar. "Now come on, before I have to defend your honor in a display of fisticuffs."

Draco looks down at himself once more, then at the door to Spinner's End. "I won't be missed," he says, a sour twist to his lips, and steps up beside Harry. "Lead on, Harry Evans."

"Actually, it's _Lay on, MacDuff._ "

Draco stares at him. "Pardon?"

"Shakespeare. MacBeth. Reading it at school this year."

Draco looks like he's never heard of Shakespeare. Maybe he hasn't. For all of his imperious air and his habit of sneering at things, he's surprisingly pliable about letting Harry buy him new clothes (his black hobnailed boots are kind of gothic and cool and Harry lets him keep those), and he's surprisingly pliable about letting Harry look at his really wicked tattoo, and he's even more pliable when Harry crowds him up against a wall in a back alley and kisses him.

It all falls apart when Draco mentions his Uncle Severus, who is the same as Mum's sort-of boyfriend Sev, and Harry and his mum have to flee from their house as it explodes behind them in a sickly green light.


End file.
